Climbing the Mythic Tower as a Cheating Administrator - Chapter 3

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Climbing a Mythic Tower with a Cheating Administrator (3)
Mu Saeng panicked.
“Damn it, what the hell is—”
But even as he cursed, his hands moved without hesitation.
He pulled a Recovery Potion from his pack and downed it in one gulp, already wrapping his thigh with bandages.
‘This should hold. If the artery had been cut, things would be a lot worse.’
There was no way to complete a full treatment down here.
After bare-minimum first aid, all he could do was trust the potion’s power.
Even from a prone position, his hands moved swiftly to fashion a crude support.
“Bloody hell—he whimpers at bats but slices through people like tofu. One-way passage, my ass. Once you’re out of here, you’re dead meat.”
Mu Saeng forced himself upright.
He vented his fury at Lee Eun Woo, but truthfully, anger was the last thing on his mind.
He was just babbling anything to keep himself moving, to push past the pain threatening to drag him under.
‘The way I came in won’t open. Going back is suicide. Better to push forward and find an exit. A temple like this has to have one.’
His mind worked with cold clarity, focused only on surviving the immediate crisis.
Compulsory education had been phased out long ago; Mu Saeng started working as a Dungeon Sherpa the moment he finished middle school.
And he’d endured for thirteen years.
Built up knowledge? Sheer instinct?
Resistance to Mana Pressure?
‘If I can find even a ventilation shaft, I’ll squeeze through. I just need to buy time. This potion costs a fortune! The bleeding will stop soon!’
No—through sheer malice. Stubbornness.
He’d endured. He’d survived.
Whatever it took.
His entire life had been devoted to his mission, lived with absolute commitment.
“Once I’m healed, I’ll find a way out—”
Sssssss……
“—slowly but surely……”
Even Mu Saeng couldn’t shake the dread washing over him.
It wasn’t just the sound.
Something massive was moving through the darkness toward him.
“Quite rare, those who offer sacrifices so quickly……. And even rarer still, that refusal to yield……. You’re an interesting human.”
From the neck up, it resembled a cobra; below, a human torso. At least three meters tall.
Sssssss……
The sinister hiss that vibrated the air came from the elongated tongue flicking from the creature’s jaw.
Gulp.
The Mana Pressure was irrelevant.
Like a frog locked in a snake’s gaze, Mu Saeng found himself paralyzed by pure, primal terror.
He knew he was going to die.
“Ugh—uuugh! Grraaagh!”
So he refused to stay still.
Driving his own fist into his barely-healing thigh was madness, but necessary madness.
The overwhelming pain that made even his scalp hair stand on end—he’d use it to drive back the terror.
“Ha—ha—let’s, ah, talk about this, shall we?”
“Hooo……. Talk, you say.”
The enormous serpent-man stepped forward, slow and deliberate.
Mu Saeng raised his left hand in a placating gesture while shuffling backward.
“Yes, talk. About the Sacrificial Offering, Master. You don’t need just one, do you? I’ll go bring back the ones who escaped earlier. Five beats one. Simple math. What do you say?”
Even as he rambled, his right hand behind his back moved with frantic purpose.
With three fingers, he twisted and tore at something—a scroll.
“Does a man converse with his food?”
[A Sacrificial Offering cannot leave.]
And with that, despair.
The cobra’s maw yawned open with a sickening crack.
Wide enough to swallow Mu Saeng whole—and yet he didn’t surrender.
In his right hand, gripped tight as his back fingers released the scroll, was a Grade B Artifact—the product of liquidating his entire savings.
A short blade laced with poison potent enough to drop an elephant in one stroke.
“Kyaaaak!?”
He leaped and slashed, severing the flickering tongue as it lashed toward him.
“You won’t talk? Then die—hngh!”
The blade had landed. He was sure of it. But then the tongue emerged again.
The tongue lashed out like a whip, coiling around Mu Saeng in an instant.
“Delicious poison,” the creature hissed.
The massive serpent-man chuckled as he spoke.
His entire body was bound tight. No resistance left now.
“You talk well enough with your mouth hanging open—you damned Tower bastards, you Dungeon scum. I hate you. I curse the rest of your miserable life.”
That was Mu Saeng for you—cursing his enemies even with his mouth barely working.
The Tower had stolen his lover.
The Dungeon had stolen his parents.
A Sherpa who’d lost his life to both the Tower and the Dungeon.
“A kind compliment,” the serpent-man replied.
Its tongue slid backward with a slick, wet sound.
The moment Mu Saeng’s upper body entered that enormous maw—
Crunch.
Fangs drove deep.
Something alien flowed through his veins.
‘Damn it… Ye Rin. Ye Rin…’
His eyelids grew heavy.
And still, Mu Saeng fought.
“Trans… transmission! Transmission! Transmission, damn it, transmission! Send my body out! Send a weapon! Do something, anything! Why do I have to have this goddamned Awakening Ability—”
So in that moment before death, panic seized him.
[Transmission request from recipient confirmed.]
[Transmission compatibility verified.]
[Match confirmed.]
System messages flickered to life in the darkness.
[Download incomplete.]
[Download progress: 73%]
[Initiating forced startup sequence.]
[Executing with corrupted files ignored.]
[Emergency recovery mode activated.]
[Encryption code confirmed.]
[Decompression in progress.]
.
.
.
───────────……!!!!
“Huh!?”
Light exploded.
Pure light swallowed everything.
The space turned brilliant white.
The massive serpent-man that had been about to devour Mu Saeng was gone.
“…uh… what?”
Before Mu Saeng’s eyes was something else.
Some sort of strange filter, crackling faintly, seeming almost artificial…
[Still 73%? With transmission speeds capped at 7 exabytes per second, the CX-Ω-74 planet is nothing but a disappointment.]
A small rubber duck.
Wearing Black-Rimmed Glasses, no less.
[Let’s see—execution halt went well, spacetime separation is at least nominal. I am quite good at this.]
The rubber duck wore a satisfied expression.
[CX-Ω-74 Tower Administrator: Code Name “Wash”]
[Transmission complete.]
[Transmission (O)]
Transmission (X) had become Transmission (O).
* * *
An endless expanse of white stretched before him.
Mu Saeng surveyed his surroundings.
‘It doesn’t hurt.’
Yet he rubbed his thigh.
The pain was gone.
Not the effect of a Recovery Potion.
“…where am I?”
Perhaps it’s because of that presence right in front of me.
[It’s a place I created. A separate spacetime. Outside, everything’s frozen. Though I doubt you’d understand even if I explained it that way.]
The yellow rubber duck spoke with unmistakable pride.
Crackle. Pixels seemed to glitch and break across its form.
Regardless of the truth, one thing was certain: there was no cobra monster.
Thanks to this Administrator.
“But wait—an Administrator? I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
Which only made Mu Saeng trust it less.
‘The Administrator of the Tower’?
He’d been Awakened since birth, and he’d never once heard of it.
[Of course not. CX-Ω-74… Earth. Why would we reveal ourselves to the humans of this primitive planet? It’s common sense. Or is that not common sense on Earth either?]
And the rubber duck proceeded to explain its reasoning.
Looking down from somewhere impossibly high above.
It was literally hovering at a height well above Mu Saeng, yet—
“So what?”
None of that mattered now.
“Are you my Awakening Ability?”
His transformed Awakening Ability—Transmission (O).
The situation itself was speaking volumes.
The simple fact that this talking rubber duck hovering in front of him existed because of Mu Saeng’s own Awakening Ability.
If something with the power to carve out an entire separate space like this was his Ability, then—
[You’re quite the dreamer. You’re just an uncivilized wretch whose code happened to touch mine. Who’s whose what, now? Guffaw! Whatever your original Ability was, it’s long since been overwritten and erased.]
Mu Saeng’s pleasant fantasy evaporated instantly.
But there was something else the duck said that struck him far deeper.
“Erased? My ‘original Ability’?”
When an Awakened One cleared the third floor of the Tower, they all received a skill connected to their Awakening Ability.
Of course, Transmission (X) had yielded nothing.
Without a technique to face monsters on the fourth floor and beyond, no party would take him. So he’d quit the Tower altogether.
That’s how he’d ended up living as a Dungeon Sherpa—well, calling it that was generous. He was a pack mule.
[That’s obvious, isn’t it? I sent it myself. Any randomly assigned code would vanish in an instant.]
So his original Awakening Ability wasn’t Transmission (X)?
It had been something else. Something, perhaps, far better.
Something better than the useless Transmission (X) that had done him no good?!
“Damn it! You filthy rubber bastard!”
Was it saying he might not have lost Ye Rin?!
Mu Saeng launched himself forward, swinging his fist.
[Squawk, squawk?! What kind of savage behavior is this, human!]
“You… you… you damned thing.”
Rage that choked off his words.
The savage desire to grab that rubbery body and tear it apart, left and right.
The yellow rubber duck seemed to feel that killing intent and its expression darkened.
[Try that again, and I’ll kill you.]
“Go ahead. Kill me.”
[What?]
“We were dying anyway. Kill me.”
Mu Saeng’s emotions boiled over, a pot with its lid blown clean off.
Yet he wasn’t speaking from emotion alone.
[…]
The rubber duck adjusted its black-rimmed glasses.
It neither killed Mu Saeng nor spoke another word.
The corners of Mu Saeng’s mouth curved upward slowly.
“You can’t kill me. I was born with this Awakening Ability. You said something about a download percentage earlier—so for twenty-nine years, this is all I’ve ever had, right? If I die here? You’ll probably have to wait an even longer time. Can you do that?”
He hadn’t forgotten the system message or the idle boasting of this duck.
Not a single word.
He’d held onto every bit of it.
The rubber duck exhaled sharply, muttering to itself.
[…Damn it. Should’ve done a full 100% download from the start.]
Then came silence.
Mu Saeng and the rubber duck, floating lazily in the void, faced each other.
Mu Saeng broke the frozen air between them, opening his mouth to speak.
“But setting that aside, what’s the reason a rubber duck wears glasses anyway?”
[Glasses? It’s my ultra high-vision information-scanning monitor. No, you’re being noisy! Cursed human……. I have a question for you.]
The yellow rubber duck descended gradually, losing altitude.
Until it hung directly before Mu Saeng’s eyes.
Then it spoke.
[Do you have the desire to climb to the top of the Tower?]
“No? I have no interest in that sort of thing.”
Mu Saeng answered without hesitation.
[What, huh? You’re being offered a way up? To the Tower’s summit?]
“What’s the point of climbing? If the Sherpa ascends the Tower, who guides?”
By now Mu Saeng was smiling broadly enough to crack jokes.
The rubber duck regarded him with a furrowed brow.
In that moment, Mu Saeng saw it.
The black-rimmed glasses.
They gleamed briefly.
[You know a human named Ju Ye Rin, don’t you?]
And with that, the duck uttered a name that froze Mu Saeng solid.
“……How do you know that name?”
He tried to answer as calmly as possible, but his trembling voice betrayed him.
The yellow rubber duck spoke.
[After my code made contact with you, I scanned the surrounding data. The strongest remaining data……. That name was it. Ju Ye Rin.]
“So what about Ye Rin?”
[Missing eight years ago after ascending the Tower. One year later, declared dead. Hmm, hmm, hmm. Eh?]
The rubber duck made a clicking sound.
Mu Saeng wanted to throw a punch, but he couldn’t.
[Strange though. There’s no death data for the human Ju Ye Rin. If someone dies in the Tower, there should always be a death log, right? But there’s no death log—only her last location data.]
The duck’s words struck Mu Saeng like a hammer blow.
Mu Saeng quickly steadied his breathing and asked.
“Wait, what are you saying? Hold on. What do you mean? Are you saying she’s alive?”
[I don’t know. But……. There’s no death data. In the Administrator’s system.]
The rubber duck shrugged its wings in reply.
Mu Saeng stared at it for a long moment, then spoke.
“That’s a lie. How am I supposed to believe that?”
[Believe it or don’t. Your choice.]
With a snort, Mu Saeng let out an incredulous laugh of his own this time.
The duck’s demeanor so far.
The vulnerability it showed in conversation.
If that’s the case, then perhaps…….
“Ha, anyone can just spout off nonsense.”
[Just spout off? Me?]
“What, you’re saying you have location data?”
[That’s what I said.]
“You could just make that up—”
[Floor fifty-eight! How dare a savage human like you doubt my ability? I could only use it once, and I just wasted it!]
Yes, he knew the duck would answer like this.
“Floor fifty-eight……? Floor fifty-eight. Floor fifty-eight.”
Mu Saeng repeated the number 58 several times, laughing.
The yellow rubber duck adjusted its black-rimmed glasses and grumbled.
[Tch……. Well, fortunately. You don’t seem to be as savage as you are stupid. Human, let me ask you again. Do you now have the desire to climb to the top of the Tower?]
And with that, it asked.
Mu Saeng looked at the yellow rubber duck in turn.
And countered.
“What if I only climb to floor fifty-eight?”
A screech—Kwaaaak!—from the duck reverberated through the white space.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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